


It's a rocky road

by Louse



Category: Steven Universe - Fandom
Genre: F/F, corrupt au, corrupt peridot, lapidot - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-05-14 19:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5755159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louse/pseuds/Louse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Lapis finds a weird creature behind the pool building, and upon discovering that it’s friendly once fed, she takes it home, only to begin searching for information about it. It will take some travelling to get to a small town she’d never heard of by the name of Beach City to learn more, though she isn’t entirely sure a tip off from a conveniently titled tumblr blog might not be that trustworthy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thank you to http://maks-gemstuffs.tumblr.com/ who let me use her Corrupt Peridot design, AND did one of the art pieces for this fic (the second piece)! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy the fic, please go follow Mak and check out her art!

Lapis yawned as she stepped out of work, rubbing one eye with the heel of her palm while the other shouldered her bag. Being a lifeguard for the local pool wasn’t often tedious, it was just boring. Granted, she didn’t wish anyone would drown, she just wished she could at least do something other than watch a bunch of people swim about, and the occasional kid flail and complain that their face was wet. The pay was decent enough, and she got to use the pool for free when there were no classes or swim sessions on, so really she couldn’t complain.

She was making her way over to her car, just a humble little Ford Ka, when the sound of something slamming into one of the dumpsters round the back of the pool building startled her. The dumpsters were very rarely even three quarters full, so the hollow sound rung for a few moments, before Lapis decided to approach. She fumbled in her bag for her torch, yanking it once once her fingers brushed it, wasting no time in turning it on as she rounded the corner of the building, expecting to see some kind of stray dog or cat that mistimed it’s jump.

What she saw didn’t match the description of either of those things. Its skin was green, the snout was thick and square-like, protruding fangs obvious in the light of the torch shone onto it, a thick, pointed mane atop it’s head and down it’s neck, with bangs that dropped down either side of it’s face, the hair gradually fading to black the further down the neck Lapis’ eyes followed. It’d body was almost human, with defined arms and legs, knees bent as if it’s main method of transportation was not meant to be on all fours as it was stood now. It’s ‘hands’ were mostly made up of five clawed fingers, and Lapis couldn’t tell where the claw began, and where the finger ended, in fact the entire hand just looked like it was made up entirely of claws, it’s feet appearing to be the same, but with only three claws for toes. It’s tail caught Lapis off guard, being sectioned into four pieces to form a thick tail, but each section was detached, floating and somehow still staying together, but the thing that surprised Laps the most about this animal?

It seemed to be wearing clothes, and a visor with some kind of lime-ish green cracked gem stuck to it, probably plastic. Someone had probably mutilated and modified this poor thing to be cruel. Somehow.The clothes consisted of what seemed to be a light green crop top, a  darker green neck sash sewn onto it, the point that rested by the animal’s chest being made up of a diamond, The pants looked more like a legless and armless leotard, the same color as the neck sash. Thankfully, it was only a few inches taller than the average golden retriever by the looks of things.

 

 

 

Unsure what to do given how this animal was, probably hurt and abused, Lapis decided it would be best to try and remain calm, seeing as the light had startled it, and it was now pressed against the dumpster side on, still facing her. She took a step back, before crouching, someone needed to get this animal off the streets, animal control wouldn’t be all too nice to it...but maybe it was suffering? She was stumped, but decided she could at least try. She reached into her bag once again, producing a half eaten chocolate bar, unwrapping it with her hand and teeth, so the chocolate was no longer wrapped up and hidden, before holding it out.

“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you…” Lapis knew that the animal couldn’t understand her, but it made her feel a bit better, a little safer, somehow. “This will taste way better than whatever you can find in there, come on…” She just hoped it worked, if that didn’t she would have to call animal control, and they’d scare the poor thing even more.

It was clearly curious, tail twitching and head tilting slightly, though it remained tense. After a few more seconds, it sniffed at the air, slowly starting to approach, claws clicking against the ground and making a scraping noise as they were lifted to take another step. The steps were slow, cautious, which was making Lapis even more anxious. Once it was close enough to take the chocolate, it sniffed it, eyes fixed on Lapis, before it’s jaws parted, gently taking the food, and retreating back a step.

Lapis lowered her hand, watching as the creature devoured the chocolate, tearing up the wrapper and eating that too. She should have completely unwrapped it, but she didn’t want her hand to smell too much like chocolate. Once the animal was done eating, Lapis shuffled forward, raising her hand again to make an attempt to pet it. It watched her hand, but made no move to bite or snap, in fact, it let Lapis touch its mane. Lapis kept her hand still fora few seconds, before working her fingers into the thick hair, scritching the animal’s scalp.

To Lapis’ surprise, and delight, it leaned into the touch, closing it’s eyes and relaxing, even starting to purr after a handful of moments, which confused Lapis further, making it even more impossible for this just to be a weird, abused dog… which, on one hand, was a bit better, it means that it hadn’t been horribly abused to look the way it did. 

Though, that also meant this wasn’t a creature from Earth, given the tail and the green skin. Was she going to be taking an alien home with her? If anyone found out, she’d be in so much trouble. Still, it would be cruel to leave it out there, dog or alien, so after a few more minutes of petting, she stood, and took a step back, patting her leg in hopes that was a universal sign to follow. It must have been, as the animal started to follow Lapis as she walked back to her car. 

Once at her car, Lapis frowned, unlocking the door and pulling the driver’s seat forward, wondering how to coax Peridot into the back. She dug through her back, but all she had left was a half a sandwich, well, barely half. Deciding it would do, she waved it in front of the creature’s snout, and once it was interested, tossed the food into the back of the car, wincing at the cleaning job she’d have to do as it fell apart and the mayo got all over the seat. Still, it was worth it, as the animal leapt right in after the food, snaffling it up quickly, even lapping the mayo off the seat. Quickly pushing the seat back, Lapis got into the car and shut the door, looking round to check on the creature, who was getting comfortable on the back seat. Hopefully, with it being about nine pm, not many people would be out to stare into her windows as she drove past.

She started up the car, looking back out of the front window of the vehicle, before pulling out of the parking lot, and out onto the road. The weird, dog-like creature whined a bit every now and then, clinging to the seat, but other than that was still and quiet for the whole ride. The only problem after that was the fact it refused to get out of the car. Even Lapis leaving the car be for a moment to fetch food from inside the house wasn’t enough to coax it out. After a handful of minutes of trying, Lapis decided that she’d either sleep in the car, or try and pick it up. Sleeping in the car sounded like it would wreck her back, and despite it being her weekend off, she’d really rather not deal with that.

“Alright, come on… sorry the car freaked you out.” She spoke, leaning into the car, doing her best to try and get a grip on the creature. Surprisingly, it let her, released the car seat and shifting into her embrace, claw-hands clinging to her. It hurt, but not enough to force her to put it down and readjust. Even more surprising, it barely weighed anything. She managed to hold it with one arm while she shut and locked up her car, before hurrying into her house, and locking the door. The first attempt to put the creature down failed - it whined and clung tighter, and that hurt enough to warrant action. Lapis stood properly, heading over to the couch, gently petting the animal’s back to try comfort it.

Once she sat, the creature purred again, relaxing, it’s grip loosening almost instantly so it could rest it’s head on Lapis’ shoulder, making soft snuffling noises as it got comfortable. Lapis smiled a little, continuing to pet it, even more enthusiastically when it started to purr. It’s strange tail started to wag as well, and Lapis reached to touch that. Only gently, brushing her fingers along one of the sections. The creature stilled it’s tail for Lapis, almost as if it was waiting for her to pull, which she didn’t. After a few more seconds, she returned to petting it’s back and it’s mane, watching as it’s tail began wagging again.

It was friendly, at least. She sat there for a little while, petting it and letting it cuddle up to her a little bit more at a time, before her stomach growled. The creature was a little startled, shifting round so it’s feet were on the couch, but it’s front body still draped over Lapis, snout pressing at the couch, as if trying to find the noise. Lapis laughed, before pushing her luck and gently ruffling it’s hair.

It didn’t seem to mind that, and even lifted it’s head a bit in curiosity. It whined when Lapis moved it, though, so she could get up and head to the kitchen. She watched as it jumped off the couch to follow her, chuckling a little to herself. It was quite attached to her already, wasn’t it? Maybe it was an alien pet or something, it seemed like it. Once she was in the kitchen, she opened the fridge, looking at what she had. Leftover pizza that she could just eat cold or something she’d actually have to cook. She opted for the pizza.

“Want some of this?” She asked as she took the pizza out and shut the fridge, waving the box a bit. She was smiling, though quickly took a step back as the creature she’s brought home stood, up on it’s feet similar to a person. It only came up to her collarbone stood up like that, and all it did was sniff at the box, but it was enough to startle her. She calmed down a moment later, reaching out and petting the alien animal before her, and discovering that it was still just as friendly stood on it’s hind legs. Curiosity pulled at her more than before now, however. Maybe someone else had found something similar? Reddit sounded like the best place to go digging for that.

 

She headed back into her living room, though only to walk to and ascend the stairs leading up to her bedroom, amused by how enthusiastically the creature followed her, walking, though almost hopping on it’s hind legs to keep up with her. Once at the stairs, though, it returned to walking on all fours, probably so it didn’t fall. Once in her room, Lapis grabbed the beanbag she kept in the corner over her desk, before sitting on the chair tucked nearly under said desk, the beanbag was for the strange animal. She should really name it, shouldn’t she? As it hopped over to sit on the beanbag, she hummed. What were some green Gem names? It seemed like a good idea to call it one of those.

While she thought, she opened up her laptop, setting the pizza box down next to it, on the opposite side of the creature, though the first slice she gave to it, watching as it ate it all in one bite happily. She turned her attention to her now booted up laptop, waiting for everything to load properly before clicking on Google Chrome’s icon, her first search being “list of bright green Gemstones”. Browsing the list, she picked out a couple that looked like they could match up. With her eyes focused on the being next to her, she started listing off the Gem names.

“Apatite.” No response. “Agate.” No response from that either. “Aventurine? Emerald? Amazonite? Jade?” No response from any of those. She looked back to the list, two more. “Peridot?” The creature tilted its head then, staring wide eyed at Lapis, who repeated the name, for the creature to tilt it’s head the other way. That must be the one it liked. “If you like that one we’ll go with that one.” Huh, she always thought that only worked in movies and fanfic. Whatever, she’d gotten lucky, she wouldn’t complain.

She reached down to pet Peridot’s snout, before moving her hand back to her laptop, typing in the reddit url, and signing in, digging through as many subreddits as she could to find any information. Alien sightings turned up nothing, the only things even vaguely similar being “The Rake” and chupacabras, neither of which made any sense or matched Peridot’s description. As much as it would help to post pictures of Peridot, she didn’t dare, lest someone locate her and try take Peridot away from her.

Instead, she made a post asking if anyone knew of any information about “a creature she’d heard her friend freaking out about”, and gave a very vague and rough description, she couldn’t be too exact after all. Bookmarking the thread, and only half praying she would get any comments out of complete fear someone would somehow figure out she was lying and had said creature right next to her, she shut down her laptop, leaned back in her chair, and took a slice of pizza, starting to eat it. Peridot looked up at her, wide eyes, whining softly and wagging its tail.

“Alright but only one more ok? I haven’t eaten since midday.” She gave Peridot the pizza slice she’d been eating, and it took it very carefully, conscious of Lapis’ fingers, but as soon as Lapis let go, it snapped the pizza into its mouth, swallowing it whole. “...You do you.” Lapis laughed a bit, before quickly finishing off the last three slices of pizza. It was a treat, she didn’t get to eat them often because she usually kept herself to a strict diet to maintain her fitness and strength to her job, so she hoped Peridot hadn’t acquired a ravenous taste for junk food.

Once the pizza was done, and the box properly discarded of, Laps decided it was time for bed. She turned the lights off downstairs, Peridot following her the entire time even though it wasn’t all that necessary. Once in her room, she decided to change, though seeing Peridot was watching her, she frowned. Animal or not, she wasn’t sure how comfortable she was with that. She tricked Peridot into following her out of the room, and shut the door quickly, getting changed as fast as she could. The whines and wails Peridot made during that time near broke Lapis’ heart, it sounded convinced Lapis was abandoning it. Once she was properly changed into her pajamas, she opened the door again, having to catch Peridot as it leapt at her, snuffling and shaking a little.

“It’s alright, shh shh shh….” Lapis did her best to comfort Peridot, petting her and speaking softly. “I just needed to get changed, I wasn’t locking you out.” Looked like Peridot was sharing the bed with her. She turned her lamp on, before turning off the room light carried Peridot to the bed, pulling the covers back with one hand, before sitting down. Peridot was reluctant to let Lapis move it, but didn’t put up too much of a fight, sitting on the end of Lapis’ bed. Lapis shuffled so she was under the covers, pulling them up over herself, only to have Peridot move, and try nuzzle it’s way under them with her. She laughed, ruffled Peridot’s hair, but lifted the covers for her regardless, the double bed allowing plenty of room for Peridot to curl up by her stomach.

Once they were both comfortable, Lapis turned off the lamp, placed one hand on Peridot, before closing her eyes, and doing her best to get some rest. She had a lot to figure out in the morning.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE IT IS
> 
> Art done by the amazing http://castypha.tumblr.com/ !
> 
> I am looking for other guest artists for at for this fic, please send me an ask here http://becidot.tumblr.com/ask if you're interested in helping o

Waking up was already bad enough, let alone waking up to an alien creature snuffling at Lapis’ face. She groaned, trying to bat Peridot away, not completely aware at first, though once she realized that something was sniffing her face, she sat up quickly, nearly falling out of the bed, until she remembered the events of the previous day. Peridot didn’t seem startled by Lapis’ sudden movement, simply tilting it’s head and snapping it’s jaws together, seemingly playfully. Lapis sighed, before patting her lap, smiling as Peridot padded over to rest it’s head and upper body on the other. She pet it, listening to the lazy purr for a few minutes, tempted to just go back to sleep, though Peridot had probably woken her because it was hungry. Oh, she’d have to let it outside at some point, too…..

 

A quick glance at her clock told her it was five am - she’d be able to let Peridot out the back for just a minute.

 

“Come on, gotta let you do your business.”

 

Peridot huffed as Lapis got up, but followed her anyway, down the stairs, to the kitchen, and then to the back door. Lapis opened it, looking expectantly at Peridot. “Go on, you can go out for a minute, just..don’t run off.” Peridot trotted out after that, Lapis keeping a close eye on it. All it did was sniff about, disappear round the corner for a few moments, sniffed around a little more, before eating a clump of grass and heading back inside. That was a pretty good confirmation that it was hungry, she could take a hint.

 

Once the door was shut, she strode over to the fridge, pulling out bacon, eggs, and sausages. She used to be picky about meat, but since taking the job as a lifeguard, that had stopped. She’d needed to just suck it up and eat properly, and apparently, it had worked. Grabbing a pan out of the cupboard, and veg-oiling it up, she turned on the stove, before starting to fry the bacon. While she waited for it to start getting heated up, she cut up the sausages and tossed those into the pan, too, the eggs could wait for last since they took less time to make.

 

Peridot was up on it’s hind legs again, sniffing at the stove, but thankfully had the common sense not to get close, could it sense the heat? Regardless, Lapis was thankful she wouldn’t have to deal with any burns, she doubted any of the local vets had any experience with whatever Peridot was. She definitely wouldn’t be able to blag it was a weird dog. 

 

The food was ready in no time, that or Lapis was lost in thought about this little green creature that looked so eager to eat. Alright, ready was being generous, the bacon was a bit overdone, as were the eggs, but the sausages were practically perfect, so as far as Lapis as concerned she’d nailed it. Once everything was plated up, she cut up Peridot’s food, placed it on the floor before carrying her own over to the kitchen table, pushing aside papers and the like she used to doodle on. That’d be the first time in months she’d eaten at the kitchen table, she recalled. 

 

Watching Peridot eat wasn’t that amusing, considering it was finished in a few seconds and begging for Lapis food after that, resting it’s head on her knee and whining softly, strange broken up tail wagging slowly. Lapis knew she should have said no and not given it anything, because it would just keep begging for food, but she couldn’t help herself. She picked up a strip of bacon, holding it out above Peridot, and dropped it once the creature’s mouth opened. It barely even chewed before swallowing, nuzzling it’s chin right back onto Lapis’ legs to whine again.

 

“No more, I’ve got to eat too, you can have a snack later.” She might actually make another plate for it, considering she needed to check reddit, despite how much she dreaded it. She’d either have one or two completely useless responses telling her that it’s fake or something it’s not, or a thousand messages of conspiracies, she wasn’t sure which would be worse. Regardless, once she’d eaten her fill, she rooted through her cupboards to find more food, deciding to empty a packet of Doritos onto the plate with the leftovers of her breakfast. For good measure, she also added a few biscuits, just in case Peridot was something akin to a bottomless pit with food.

 

Lapis looked over the plate for a second, her stomach churning as the sheer amount of food no it. If she had to eat all that she’d be sick, thankfully it was all for Peridot, who seemed more than keen to get stuck into it. “Don’t make a mess.” Lapis warned, before making her way back upstairs and t her room, hearing Peridot follow behind her, making impatient chuffing noises. Once back in her room, Lapis set the plate down before turning on her laptop, hearing Peridot’s teeth snap together as it crunched up the doritos and biscuits.

 

With the laptop now fully loaded, Lapis clicked about on her browser to pull up Reddit, not wanting to type anything in out of sheer laziness, als due to the fact she was dreading seeing her inbox - which contained four messages in total. One was from a subreddit bot, two told her “it’s probably the Rake”, and another-

 

The sounds of Peridot eating had stopped,Lapis looked around, only to see that it had gotten into her clothing draws, and had dragged out a pair of boxers. She’d gotten them as a gift, a novelty more than anything, ironically they had green alien heads printed on them. She was about to get up to scold Peridot until she saw what the alien was trying to do. It didn’t try eat them, at first it just tried to stick it’s head in them, failing to do that, it’s arms. Upon spotting the button undone at the front, it shifted to try and sit, tugging the boxers on over it’s legs, then over the stump of the tail connected to it’s body.

 

 

It looked at them for a few moments, before trying to walk, only to fall forward onto it’s chin with it’s rear still in the air letting out a frustrated huff, which caused Lapis to laugh. 

 

“Peridot what are you doing?” The creature looked over at her and huffed again, getting back up to it’s feet and trying to kick the boxers off, clearly embarrassed. “You can leave them on, if you want. They don’t look bad on you.” Peridot tried a few more times to get the boxers off, before it gave in, and slunk back over to sit beside Lapis on its beanbag, looking up at her. Lapis leaned down to pet it before going back to what she had been doing before.

 

She opened up the final message, a private one, furrowing her brow at the content of it. It seemed...dubious, somewhat shady, like someone was hoping they’d get lucky and someone pretty would turn up for them to stuff into a bag and make off with, but at the same time it also seemed like some low life blogger that probably didn’t have any friends. Possibly a mix of the two.

 

“I noticed your post on one of the subreddits I frequent and I couldn’t help but wonder if what you were seeing is similar to what I see on a daily basis, creatures that are dangerous and come in all shapes, sizes and colors. I didn’t think any of them would leave town though, they always seemed to show up around here, this is the only time I’ve even heard f anything like what we get here showing up elsewhere.

 

Because of this I urgently request that you contact me through my blog, there are some posts and pictures there that should prove to you there are creatures here that could possibly even be the one you’re looking for!”

 

Lapis wasn’t sure if she should click the link attached in the message - it could have tracers and everything on it, so after a little bit of research she installed some kind of proxy to her browser, before deciding to venture onto the blog. It was mostly full of bullshit conspiracy, until she reached the images of strange alien creatures - one resembling a huge crab,another looked like a floating pufferfish…

 

Peridot snapped its jaws together and whined, pushing its head onto Lapis’ legs. Lapis pet it, looking at the pictures for a few more seconds. Was this where Peridot was from…? She certainly would have fit in there. Lapis did have to wonder, though, if those pictures were real why weren’t they on the news? Surely they were fake if the world hadn’t been taken by a storm over them.

 

“What do you think of these?” Lapis asked Peridot, tapping the screen. Peridot looked up at them, letting out a soft whining noise and bunting its head against Lapis’ hip. That was hard to read, was Peridot encouraging her or telling her to stop, or was it simply trying to get more attention? Either way, Lapis figured this was a better lead than the others, and sent an “ask” to the blog after quickly making an account to do so, stating who she was from Reddit, and that she wanted to know more about the pictures on the blog. Even if, or when, they turned out to be fake, it didn’t matter.

 

Lapis would happily take care of Peridot, it was well behaved and would just need feeding and careful timing to let out or walk. It would be hard to get into the routine, but Lapis was willing to tough it out. She was about to shut her laptop down when she received a notification that her ask had already been answered, this guy was giving her weird vibes, had they been waiting this whole time?

 

The answer was brief, just an email address to talk to him through for longer responses, and a location to visit if she wanted to learn more, though she figured she would hold off on that for a while. Beach City was pretty far away she came to realize after using Google Maps to figure out the distance - it would take a few days on the road to get there, including breaks maybe two, possibly three days to get from just outside of Tucson to round about where Delaware was and to a tiny part of the map called ‘Delmarva’. She hadn’t heard of it, and if she had been told about it before she would have called it off as fake but Google was showing her it quite clearly.

 

Peridot wandered off as Lapis started typing up an email, and she watched as it went to hop up onto the bed and lay down. 

 

“You can’t be tired already, we’ve barely been awake two hours.” Lapis chuckled as Peridot huffed at her and got comfortable, rolling  onto its back and closing it’s eyes. Email abandoned for now, she wandered over to the bed to place a hand on Peridot’s belly and rub, watching as the strange creature wiggled a little bit, clearly pleased. Did Lapis really want to take it back? She didn’t actually know what became of the creatures once they showed up…

 

After a few more minutes of playing and petting Peridot, Lapis returned to the email, making sure to ask what happened to the creatures. If they were hurt...well, she wouldn’t be taking Peridot there. It meant absolutely no harm, after all, and seemed quite happy living with her.

  
She just had to hope her question wouldn’t seem suspicious.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No art this time, sorry  
> but it needed updating  
> no art from here on out I think unless someone volunteers. I don't have the energy or money

Lapis hung up the phone, just having taken her last two weeks of holiday from work. She had bank holidays, days off and weekends off, but if she had plans to go anywhere...fuck em, she supposed. She probably didn’t need two weeks, and could call up and save that last week for later, but she was playing it safe.

It meant she didn’t have to rush getting things together for the road trip. She’d been talking back and forth over the day to that weirdo via email, while making sure her cooling bags, boxes and such all worked and that her containers were all airtight. She was going to take as much food and water with her as she could, buying food on the road would be expensive. A cold diet for the next week or so wasn’t going to be pleasant, but whatever, it would be worth it. She hoped.

She had a portable microwave, but that ate up a lot of car battery, or regular batteries if she put those in instead, so she wouldn’t use it often. She had spare car batteries in her trunk, same with a spare wheel, tools, and more. She was coming prepared, so she’d locked Peridot in the kitchen while fetching a fuck ton of batteries and snacks from the store.

What she would be using regularly, would be the travel kettle. Like hell was she roadtripping without at least five cups of coffee a day. She’d take hot water in flasks to start though, even luke warm coffee was better than cold. She had spare clothes packed, pillows, blankets, a dog bed she picked up from the store which she lay on the back seat. She’d bought screens to put over her windows, so that her and Peridot could see out, but people wouldn’t be able to see in at just a glance. It was a lengthy discussion about which ones actually allowed the legal percentage of light in, but after chats and googling, she found the ones she needed.

Supplies packed, she fished the collar, harness and chain leash out of the pet store bag, approaching Peridot with it. It sniffed at the things, before trying to dart off, but Lapis had already managed to get the collar around it’s neck, and as much as it protested, eventually settled, bunting it’s head against Lapis’ leg.

Lapis laughed a bit, before attempting the put the harness on. There was much less resistance on Peridot’s part, seeming to prefer it actually. That, or it remembered Lapis had no intention of hurting it. Either way, both harness and collar were on, and the leash attached to the harness. She’d only need to attach it to the collar if she walked it out of the car, which would only be on a night time really.

Still, with everything loaded into the car, including the laptop and her wifi and data dongles, she figured they were ready. She had unlimited data on her phone for checking the emails, but sometimes she wanted to browse the internet with a laptop on a night time. Ugh, sleeping in the car was going to be uncomfortable as hell, but she’d stuffed the back seat’s footwells with blankets and pillows, compact enough so that her and Peridot could sleep on it with the front seats pushed forward on a night time.

Hopefully, she hadn’t forgotten anything. It was getting dark, so she figured now would be a good time to walk Peridot out to the back seat of the car. Her heart hammered in her chest, looking round at her house one last time. Gone for possibly two weeks, living in her car… it reminded her far too much of her childhood. For a second, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go, but Peridot stood up and nuzzled it’s cheek against her arm, seemingly comforting her. It helped, at least.

Lapis took Peridot out into the car, shutting the door before locking up the doors to her house, hesitating for a second to leave it, before climbing into the front seat. Looked like the window screens were actually quite effective. She pulled out her GPS, setting it up to take her to Delaware, and when given the option, chose the scenic route. It would take much longer, but would take them down less highways, meaning less cops to question her window tints, and possibly see Peridot.

Once all that was set up, she turned the keys in the car, and started driving. She’d already briefed Peridot on the situation, who seemed quite excited, laying down on the dog bed in the back seat and wagging it’s tail. Lapis smiled a bit at it, before looking back at the road. “Looks like we’re in for the long haul now.”

Peridot made an odd chirping noise in response. Lapis decided to shoot a text to a friend, asking her to check the house every now and then. She had a spare key after all, still, it was nerve racking, leaving the place she’d worked so hard to get, even just temporarily. She’d been forced to live in her car for two years, and now she was willingly doing it again for a week or two. It sent an uncomfortable shudder down her spine, but at least she wasn’t alone this time. Except on the way back, of course…

She shook that thought out of her head, clipping her phone into the holder attached to the car, tapping at it for a second to open up a new email from that creep guy.

‘You’re coming? Oh, that’s awesome! I didn’t think you’d actually believe me, even with the photographic evidence, nobody seems to.’

Yikes… she didn’t read the rest. She wasn’t in the mood for that. She locked the phone, and focused on the road after putting the radio on. Peridot already seemed to be napping, she didn’t blame it, there really wasn’t much for it to do. She drove in silence, save for murmuring the lyrics to the occasional song, pulling up and parking to rest after a few hours. Leaving at eight pm meant that she could only drive for about four hours,, before she’d need to rest, so tomorrow she could drive for a solid twelve. 

The road was a scenic one, a dirt layby offering Lapis a place to park for the night and the privacy to take a piss and let Peridot do the same. She gently woke the creature, before getting out of the car, and using the leash to coax peridot out, locking up before stepping over a small fence into a small cluster of trees just off the road. It was probably privately owned, so she just had to hope whoever owned it didn’t mind.

She tugged her shewee out of her pocket, before deciding a few trees in the center would be her best bet, standing on the chain leash so Peridot didn’t wander off. It didn’t, and averted it’s eyes, waiting for laps to be done before it did it’s own business on the way back to the car.

“Done?” Lapis asked, and it nodded, trotting happily towards the car and waiting patiently. “We’ll go again in the morning before we wake up.” She opened up the back of the car, letting Peridot hop in, before leaning in to push the seats forward, sorting the blankets and pillows stuffed in the footwells out so that she could move the dog bed onto them. Propping two pillows against the door, and grabbing a thin blanket, Lapis got into the back seat, shutting the door and locking the car once more, grabbing her laptop and dongle from the front seat.

There’d be enough charge for her to just check her email, if needs be she’d charge t during the day while driving and not using the kettle. She’d wait to eat again until the morning, and she’d make them both a hot drink, probably just tea or hot chocolate for Peridot though, coffee seemed a little bit risky.

Peridot cuddled up to her, head resting on her arm as she checked her email, and her facebook and such. After about half an hour or mindless browsing to wind down, and responding to the guy who she had learned was called Ronaldo, she decided it would be best to sleep. He packed the laptop down and back into the laptop bag, dumping it back onto the passenger seat before placing the pillows down onto the back seat, and getting comfy.

She was only lay down for a few seconds when Peridot cuddled up to her again, on it’s side and back to her. She nuzzled her chin into it’s hair so she could breath without getting hair in her nose, and wrapped her arms round it, which seemed to please it, as it made a soft trilling noise, before falling silent and asleep. Lapis was really starting to have her regrets, trying to take Peridot to where it came from. It was only fair, but there was always that selfish want to keep it. It was happy with her,and she liked having it around.

Still, she couldn’t think like that. Peridot deserved to go home.

It took Lapis a while to drift off to sleep, but once she did she was comfortable, and the anxiety of sleeping in her car again left her. She wasn’t alone for now, she’d enjoy that while she could.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for this one being so late, I'm just a lazy sack of fuck  
> Enjoy !

The morning was a groggy one. Coffee made just a little colder than Lapis would have liked, a cold breakfast and cold air outside to boot. Things would heat up when it wasn’t seven in the morning, but for now she would grumble about the fact she was shivering while she took a piss. At least Peridot was enthusiastic about a cold breakfast, but it just seemed to want to eat anything and everything it was allowed to eat.

It had wolfed down the sausage rolls, and then the twinkie Lapis had offered her. Lapis normally loved those things, but they were far too sweet to have just after waking up.

Once all was done and packed away, Lapis turned the keys in the ignition and set off again, Peridot quite happy to chill in the back seat. No new email from the guy it seemed, which was slightly off putting, but she knew where she was going at least. 

After a few hours of driving, even music wasn’t budging the dull monotony. Driving used to be a fun experience, before she had to flee and live in her car, now if she drove for a while she was straight up miserable. She wished she could have Peridot in the shotgun seat, but that would cause a whole load of issues. The front windows were much more see through than the back ones, after all.

Not longer later, Peridot started to make a fuss on the back seat. Lapis glanced over her shoulder to try and suss but what was wrong, but couldn’t see anything. The creature was pawing at the windows and snapping it’s jaws together in the air, at first Lapis thought maybe it was too hot, and cranked the AC up. That didn’t solve anything, and after a few minutes, Peridot began to straight up panic.

“Hold on.” Lapis spoke,trying to soothe Peridot as she drove on to a lay by, pulling over so she could get out of the car and into the back seat. Peridot nuzzled its head up against Lapis for a few moments, before it moved over to the window again and bunted its nose against it. “You want outside?”

Peridot bumped its nose off the window again with a small whimper, maybe it needed to pee? The problem was, they weren’t on a very secluded road. They were on one of the busiest roads they would have been on the entire journey, and would be for another twenty minutes.

“Can you hold it?”

Peridot let out a desperate cry, and Lapis knew she was just going to have to hope. Keeping the door furthest from the road open, and blocking the view with her body on the other side, she clipped the leash to Peridot and let it jump out.

The second it was out and hit the ground, it’ back arched and it threw up, shaking during and after, looking up at lapis with a pitiful expression. It whimpered, its stomach audibly churning. Lapis was a little startled to say in the least. Peridot had managed to hold being sick for long enough to do it outside… now she felt bad for being lazy and just turning the AC on.

She crouched, patting Peridot so it knew it wasn’t in trouble, frowning a little. Was it the twinkie? Those things were more chemical waste spill than food, she probably shouldn’t have fed it to Peridot.. Things could have been so much worse.

“You ready to go again or do you need a few minutes?”

Peridot responded by nudging its head against Lapis’ shoulder, before hopping back into the car, already feeling much better by the looks of things. Hoping nobody had got a good look at Peridot, Lapis unclipped the leash, shut the door and got back in the driver’s seat, taking off again.

So, whatever Peridot was, twinkies and probably anything else made by Hostess made it sick - was it sweet foods in general? Lapis hadn’t really fed it anything that wasn’t savory. She’d stick to feeding it plain foods, not wanting to test that theory at Peridot’s expense. They would both have to tough the trip out, making it sick again would be unfair.

The problem was that when it came to lunch time, Peridot was awfully insistent about getting its jaws around a donut, even though Laps told it no and pushed it’s snout away.

“You’ll be sick again.” Lapis tried to reason, but Peridot had only snorted at her and reached for another sprinkle-covered treat. In the end, she settled for giving Peridot a third of a donut, and eating the rest herself. It seemed satisfied with that, and was also fairly pleased with the ham sandwich it was given. 

The second day on the road was fairly uneventful other than that - the donut didn’t make Peridot sick, so it must have just been something about twinkies, the only times Peridot had needed out again was to pee.

Lapis shut her laptop for the night, Peridot having been cuddled up alongside her while she’d been using it. She leaned forward to put the laptop back on the front seat, laying down after so Peridot could cuddle up to her. Unlike the previous night, it lay facing her, bumping it’s snout under her chin, almost as if insisting Lapis paid attention to it.

Once Lapis did, it let out a happy trilling noise, blinking slowly at her. Lapis laughed a little.

“You’re adorable.” She commented, before pressing a playful kiss to Peridot’s snout. It trilled gain, cuddling closer to lapis, laying its head over her neck and wrapping its arms around her, similar to how her arms were around it.

Lapis knew Peridot was just as sentient and intelligent as she was, that much was made very clear, but the way Peridot was cuddling up to her was still somewhat unsettling.

Was Peridot something else before it was.. Well. So animalistic? It understood her as if it was fluent in english, could communicate with her quite well despite being unable to actually speak and already had a taste for human food.

That thought kept Lapis awake for a while, because she couldn’t even tell herself she as just being ridiculous.

Peridot was not an Earth creature. Considering that… anything was possible regarding it and its nature.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is

Thankfully, the next day was their last day on the road. Lapis beamed as she saw they were on the road that lead into ‘Beach City’, a relieved sigh following.

“We’re almost there!”

Peridot snapped its jaws together, excitedly wiggling on the back seat. Lapis laughed a bit, glad that the trip was going to be over, but cut short when she realized that chances were, she wasn’t going to see Peridot again after today. It must have sensed the change, as it stuck its head between the seats to gently nuzzle her shoulder.

“Just tired, no worries.”

Lapis found a place to park up, and for a second just sat there. It had only been a few days, but already she was fairly attached to Peridot. The alien creature was sweet, and was clearly quite fond of her in return. Saying goodbye was going to be harder than she thought. Still, she got out of the car and let Peridot out the back, clipping the leash on before locking the car up.

Despite Peridot clearly not being a normal animal, the few residents of the town didn’t seem to be bothered much by its presence. The people she spoke to didn’t even seem fussed - one made a passing comment about how it was ’friendlier than the rest of them’. On one hand, that meant they were in the right place, on the other it was still fairly unsettling.

“Hey!”

Lapis turned towards the voice, seeing a kid running towards them. At first, Lapis went to tug Peridot away, unsure how it would react, but it pulled her instead, towards the kid, its tail wagging and making loud yipping noises. Did Peridot know this kid…?

Even he seemed fairly startled by Peridots behavior, but when he noticed the gem on her forehead, everything seemed to just make sense to him. He looked at Lapis, who looked back at him, her expression one of pure confusion as she pulled Peridot away from the kid, concerned it was getting too excitable. 

“Where did you find her?” He asked, reaching over to Peridot to touch her gem, a concerned and upset look on his face. “We’ve been looking for her everywhere!”

“...Tucson. Who are you?” Lapis had a feeling this boy knew about these creatures, but it was obvious he wasn’t the contact she’d been speaking to. “You’re not Ronaldo are you?”

“Me? No! I’m Steven - but how did Peridot get to Tucson?”

Did Peridot belong to Steven…? Peridot was a her? Peridots kind was a regular sight i Beach City? Much more of that and her head would pop.

“I don’t know, I found her behind my workplace. I’m looking for Ronaldo, he said that he could tell me where she came from-”

“Don’t take her to Ronaldo.” Steven’s voice was firm, but still soft. “He’s… a little obsessed with aliens and the paranormal, he cant get his hands on a gem. Here, I’ll take you back to the Temple and you can talk to Pearl.”

“...Pearl? Is Pearl like Peridot?”

“Kinda - but her gem isn’t damaged.”

Lapis was reluctant to follow this kid out of the town, and towards a run down looking statue, but the way Peridot was acting, and how happy she seemed to be...she didn’t have a choice. Up the hill and the steps, and into the house they went, all the while Lapis was tense and somewhat nervous.

Not two seconds after stepping into the house, a tall pale woman practically just appeared, pointed the sharp end of a spear towards Peridot.

“Steven get back!”

Lapis tugged Peridot back harshly, the creature having let out a surprised yelp when threatened, they were startled and worried that this madwoman was about to kill them both, until Steven got between them.

“Pearl! It’s ok, it’s Peridot! And, uh…” Steven looked round at Lapis with an awkward smiile. “What’s your name?”

“...Lapis.”

Pearl frowned, looking Lapis over.

“You’re a gem?”

Lapis shook her head, noticing the gem on Pearls forehead now. Was Peridot supposed to look more human? Had her gem being cracked changed her somehow…?

“No, I’m human - can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“The gems are an alien race that came to Earth to protect us and some of them are still here.” Steve explained quickly, before pointing at Peridot “Peridots gem is damaged - that’s why she looks that way. But I can heal her!”

This was going too fast for Lapis, who held her head while shaking it.

“I’m still confused.”

“We’ll explain more later.” Steven stepped towards Peridot again, licking his hand. “I’ll heal Peridot first.” He papped his wet hand against Peridots gem, and lapis watched as it glowed for a moment. For a second, nothing happened, until Peridots entire body seemed to disappear into a bright, stinging light. Lapis had to look away, but once the light died down, and she looked back…

She had what looked like a green human on a leash.

For a second, Lapis just stared. Peridot was grinning, looking at her hands - grasping the air with her fingers and uncurling them again, looking down at her feet now that they werent claws.

“It worked!” Steven beamed, throwing his arms around Peridot, who began to laugh.

Lapis just dropped the leash, turned and left.

It was all too much for her - nothing had been explained, Peridot had done some beauty and the beast shit and turned into a human, and it turned out that gemstones were actually sentient people from outerspace.

“Wait!”

Lapis didn’t stop, though. The voice was unfamiliar to her, and she didn’t want to know. She just wanted to go home. When she felt someone grab her hand, though, she looked to see Peridot, holding it and trying to stop her walking.

“Don’t go! I didn’t even get to thank you yet.”

Lapis looked at Peridot for a good few seconds, before sighing.

“If someone can explain everything to me, then I’ll stay. If not, I’m going home.”


End file.
